Maybe in Another Life

Reid always writes entertaining fiction that forms a mental platform for deeper considerations. This book is not one of the ones that has gone viral online, but, in my opinion, is the one most deserving of the fanbase and may be the best of the oeuvre.

A woman who cannot seem to set down roots moves back to her childhood hometown and goes to a welcoming cocktail party. Her ride home needs to leave early and she is confronted with the seemingly minor choice to either depart or get a later ride with an old flame. From there, the story splits and carries on in parallel realities pursuing the aftermath of both choices simultaneously. One small decision results in drastically varied outcomes.

This book will keep the reader thinking on every show more minor life decision and how little things can have huge ripples and how things could easily have ended so differently. show less

Do you believe in fate? Chance? Do the decisions you make change the path of your future or is that path set so that no matter which choices you make or free will you exhibit you'll get to the same place because you were always destined to be there? And what about multiple universes? If you believe that your decisions drive your future, can there be alternate realities where you chose differently and ended up living a different life? Taylor Jenkins Reid's newest novel, Maybe in Another Life, asks just these questions.

Hannah is 29 years old and after a lifetime of moving around and feeling rootless, she is moving back to LA. She'll live near her best friend Gabby again and maybe even reconnect with Ethan, the high school ex-boyfriend show more she's always thought might one day turn out to be "the one." On her first night back, she goes out to see a bunch of friends, including Ethan. When Gabby and her husband are ready to go home, Hannah must decide whether she's going to go with them or if she wants to stay out a little longer and pursue what she suspects could in fact happen with Ethan. And in the pivotal moment of making a decision, the universe splits and her life spirals outward from both options, radically changing the trajectory of her life in unexpected ways.

Oddly, both choices are the right one and lead to vastly different outcomes in her life. Both choices also include aspects that must have been fated as well because they happen regardless of her chance decision at the bar. But as the narrative flips back and forth between the two realities that she is living concurrently, her decisions have altered almost everything. The flipping back and forth between the different lives is a little bit confusing and difficult in the beginning but adjusting to the back and forth becomes easier as the novel progresses. And the chapters start to end just when the reader wants them to continue, just when a situation needs resolving or Hannah is on the verge of making another decision, giving the narrative pacing a breathless and anticipatory sort of feel all the way through.

There are echoes from one life to another, especially in the dual endings, that ask us to question whether we could be happy in more than one reality. Is your soul mate the only person out there for you? Is your profession the only one that can be fulfilling? Reid seems to argue that we make our own lives and our own happiness and that we can construct it differently, but no less contentedly, based on chance and our choices. The novel is a fun and quick read with an interesting and quirky concept. Hannah's choices, in both of her lives, will resonate with readers who have probably wondered "what if?" more than once in their own lives. This novel makes is delicious to contemplate those endless possibilities for ourselves. show less

Told as two interlocking stories, Hannah has two outcomes after she moves back to Los Angeles. In one, she has a serious accident, and in the other she doesn't. The story follows Hannah and her friend, Gabby, as Hannah's life takes 2 different directions. There were many moments of humor which helped to lighten some serious issues. I loved how Taylor Jenkins Reid handled the two possible outcomes for Hannah.
I loved it!

Harking back to the film "Sliding Doors", Hannah faces a pivotal choice - go home with the ex boyfriend or with her roommate. From there we see two different versions of Hannah's life and all the ways in which life hinges on what we choose - and that also all paths include the same kinds of experiences, good and bad. I really liked that she and her best friend were best friends in both timelines.

I thought this might be a little gimmicky, but is actually quite well done. Our lives are a series of choices and like a choose-your-own-adventure, we never know what path each choice ultimately leads to. In this book, the author explores two alternate paths for Hannah Martin, following where one simple choice would lead her. Hannah has been a restless soul, seeking more to get away from something than to find something. Finally at age 29, she is coming "home" to Los Angeles, after a failed relationship with a married man in NYC. "Home" does not entail her parents and sister, Sarah who left for London to pursue Sarah's ballet career when Hannah had 2 years left in high school. Instead, "home" is her best friend Gabby, Gabby's parents show more (the Hudsons) who took her in for 2 years, and an old flame/first boyfriend/lover Ethan. On her second night back in town, Hannah faces a choice: go home with Ethan or go home with Gabby. The book then offers alternating chapters of what each option would entail. Going home with Ethan involves re-kindling the relationship, finding out if he really is the "one," determining just how strong the bond can be when unforeseen situations from Hannah's "past life" intrude, finding a job, putting down roots - all of which she has been incapable of to date. Going home with Gabby involves an unexpected accident, a long recovery, a chance to face her real family, a challenge to overcome lots of obstacles, a variety of new people in her life, not least is her night nurse, Henry. Reid balances both options deftly, develops Hannah into a full character and has some worthwhile insights: "It doesn't matter if we don't mean to do the things we do. It doesn't matter if we think this is was an accident or a mistake. It doesn't matter if we think this is all up to fate. Because regardless of our destiny, we still have to answer for our actions. We make choices big and small, every day or our lives, and those choices have consequences....Fate or not, our lives are still the results of our choices. I'm starting to think that when we don't own them, we don't own ourselves." (274) A variation of this appears in each iteration, which is clever and ultimately the two Hannahs arrive at the same destination a couple years later: Gabby's 32nd surprise party, with 2 completely different lives, and even a different one for Gabby than she started with. Her husband gives a speech: "It's entirely possible that every time we make a decision, there is a version of us out there somewhere who made a different choice. An infinite number of versions of ourselves are living out the consequences of every single possibility in our lives....and my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn't end up with you." (318) Pleasant read, with something to think about and the friendship between the 2 women is very authentic and definitely makes this worthwhile. Good concept to start the year with! show less

This was a fun read with a plot exploring an interesting concept. In this book, a single decision splits the main character's life into two separate stories (or an infinite number of stories, but we only read about two of them).

The book seems to suggest that not any single path (or person) leads to happiness, but many paths can be equally adequate and fulfilling, if in different ways.

Total fluff of a novel, which tries to explore the influence of choices on our lives. I liked the parallel stories, and the way they switched back and forth at very crucial moments in the narrative.
The love stories were cute, and for this reader who has only discovered heartbreaking love at middle age, they were uplifting. It is nice to believe that there are second chances even if life does not give you the one you cared about. Perhaps there are other soul mates out there?

That said, I realize the exploration of choice here is not very deep. The choice we started with was trivial and the events that followed thereafter (at least in one of the parallel narratives) were more of the lightning strike of destiny than a consequence of show more choice. Still what the book is trying to say that even small choices can cumulatively lead to different outcomes.

I enjoyed the book, and read it fairly quickly as it kept me interested in the outcome of both story-lines. There were parts that were boring though with repetitions of character traits, and almost identical scenes in both stories. show less